“A highly revealing exposé of the hidden real world.”
Noam Chomsky, professor and activist
Opening 19th May 2023, a/political presents Silent Coup, a new body of work by British artist Peter Kennard (b. 1949), based on a revelatory new book of the same name by investigative journalists Claire Provost and Matt Kennard, launching concurrently. The project marks the father and son duo’s first creative collaboration.
Peter Kennard, a pioneer of photomontage, extends his visual language into new areas that physically encroach on the space of the viewer, developing his practice through sequencing images with the assistance of Nigel Brown programming a Raspberry Pi microcontroller. Recognised for his anti-war activism and involvement in major protest movements including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in this new body of work Kennard responds to complex issues including the unstoppable rise of global corporate power and the political interference of super-corporations in functioning democracies, who dictate how resources are allocated, territories are governed, and justice is defined.
“This new work is concerned with finding ways to show the rise of corporate power, how it encroaches into every pore of our being as well as the Earth itself. The work tries to rip through the veil of share price listings and corporate logos by showing the results of profit at all costs - poverty, war, state violence, climate catastrophe.” Peter Kennard
Double Exposure, meshes market data and flashing images to present a time-based photomontage that uncovers corporate profit normally hidden from sight. As visitors enter the space, they will encounter two long lines of printed newspapers that recount the day’s share prices. A montage of weaponry, climate breakdown and, war victims will be projected for a few seconds before moving on to another paper. Boardroom is a series of anonymous faces mounted on large-scale wooden boards salvaged from the East London streets around Kennard’s studio. Their mouths are replaced by projected logos of major corporations – Shell, BP, BAE Systems – that appear as gags stifling the voices of democracy.
“This is the biggest story of our time. The modern corporate form was invented in England in the 16th Century. Since then it has cannibalised the state that created it—and gone global. The visual form in our society has been colonised by the corporate public relations industry and advertising. What we see has been hijacked by profit-friendly imagery intended to maintain the ‘buying mood’. My Dad’s work claims back the form — and shows us how we’ve been lied to and deceived.” Matt Kennard
The book Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy, on which Peter’s response is based, is published by Bloomsbury Academic on the 4th of May. The volume is the result of investigative journalists Claire Provost and Matt Kennard’s reports from 25 countries around the world, and highlights the power grab that took place in the 20th century and made way for this new world order.
“Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy visualises the unseen mechanisms of power uncovered by the work of Matt Kennard and Claire Provost; a new era of colonialism where multinational corporations can sue governments for changing policy and enlist private armies to murder and torture populations. It reveals the corporate Utopia we are in today, energy companies are making billions in profit while people freeze in their homes and children can’t eat because of the cost of living crisis.” a/political
![The Mistake [Play]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/595e193c36e5d38c3baa8e18/1669631346649-2JFM4WY66U34M95YVE70/b1ae5bfb31bf93cd9d9075183f6854f8.jpg)
